The peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death
by Agapanto Blu
Summary: "Death." Kise stopped. Shocked, he laid his eyes on Aomine, but the navy ones were as wide as his as the tanned boy kept on talking. "It was…Death. Death was trying to…strangle Tetsu." (No Pairings)
1. Chapter 1

**_The peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death_**

It was scary, so scary. Kise couldn't stop himself from watching, horrified, the scene in front of him.

 _It_ looked like a woman, but it was a risky guess. It was completely pitchy black, but not like for humans, a real black like the one of the depth of a cave or a sealed room with no openings, and it was not just…her?...skin. Everything was so coloured: even nails and mouth and nose and _eyes_. There was no sclera in her eyes, they were just two round black balls slipped in a face so similar in shade that it was difficult to pick out her traits. Her hair were floating long – the longest Kise had ever seen – all around her head as if a strange wind were having fun in spreading them like a veil or a particular halo. Some kind of long gown seemed to be covering her legs, or maybe she didn't even have them, and was laying on the floor softly; since it was the same colour of the rest, it was impossible to say if it was a dress or her body. She had thin arms and little refined hands with long fingers, that were however connected by some strand of skin, as if the webbed ones of a frog. And while one of those hands – after passing from behind under a certain arm – was resting gently but firmly on a little chest trembling in heavy breaths, the other was covering a mouth and with the part between pointer and thumb closing the nose of someone Kise was not ready to lose.

"Kurokocchi!" he tried to call, but the little phantom was laying with his legs bent backward and his back resting against the creature chest, his head posed on her clavicle.

He had his eyes closed, a pained expression on his face and breaths always slower.

The creature held him tighter at Kise's calling out and hissed toward him, revealing that even the inside of her was the same shade of black.

"Don't mess with me, stupid bitch!" Ryouta turned a bit right, just to find a blue-haired tan-skinned well-known boy, beside him, earning another hiss from the creature, "Leave Tetsu alone, you fucking mud doll!"

"Aomine, don't make her angry!" was the sudden scolding from a guy at the Touou's ace right, "She could kill him!"

As soon as those words exited Midorima's lips, Kise knew they were wrong. Judging from the faces of them all, the same revelation must have stuck the others too.

They were in a huge attending room in Winter Cup sport palace and all the teams were there. Seirin and Kaijou at Kise's left, Touou right behind him, next to Rakuzan. To the Kyoto's team's right, behind Midorima, stood Shuutokou and to its right was Yosen. All the persons didn't move, simply watched, and nobody made a move to help the little phantom player sprawling knelt in the creature's morbid embrace.

And the creature was Death.

It struck him. Hard. There was nothing they could do. How could they take Kuroko away from Death in person?! She was there for him, they all could sense it, so…

"Don't you dare."

The menacing voice coming from behind them, in the space between Aomine and Midorima, made Kise turn with an hint of hope in his mind: if there was someone who could defy and win Death, that was…

"Akashi."

It was nothing more than a whisper out of Midorima's lips, but even if louder Seijuro wouldn't have paid it any attention. His now both crimson eyes were fixed and focused on the creature holding Tetsuya.

The phantom's breath was slower and slower any minute, they all could sense it. They had no time to waste.

"Don't you dare." he repeated, "Take your hands off of him _now_."

Death hissed again at him and this time two strange section of skin, like gills or the chlamys collar of a Frilled Lizard, lifted on the sides of her throat threateningly.

Akashi stood unfazed.

"What happened?" he said instead, "We just played a match and he's going to get out of here to take his prize: he's perfectly fine so there's no reason for you to take him now."

Death hissed again, but this time the hiss took a meaning in the guys' minds. It was not like they turned into words, but more like…they were suddenly able to get their meaning, as if they'd just learnt that new language.

It was something on the lines of: _he'll be better with me than with you._

Kise's eyes widened as Aomine cursed and Midorima stuttered something. Murasakibara's candy fell on the ground and Akashi, surprising everyone, abruptly stood straight, as if hit in the face. They all knew what the creature was talking about.

Immediately, Death turned his face, right above her prey's right shoulder, toward Tetsuya's one and somehow she looked softer, almost tender. The hands she was still pressing on his mouth and nose looked somehow caring and the other crossing his chest seemed like a motherly hug. She was _fond_ of the little phantom.

"…Wait…" Midorima tried to say, eyes wide opened, but then couldn't find the words. It wasn't right; he could feel it. It was true that they hurt Kuroko in the past, but things were different now! They had changed back to their former selves, the ones they were before victory wasted their precious time with each other. It was _different_!

Tetsuya breath stumbled and almost stopped.

"WAIT!"

All the eyes moved on Kise, but the blond had his eyes fixed on Death's face and ignored her hiss to clumsily take three steps forward. He was trembling and tears were already falling from his eyes as he watched the phantom boy on the verge of…death.

"WAIT!" he screamed again seeing the littler body jerking unwillingly, "Wait, please, wait! I beg of you!"

Death held Kuroko closed to her, almost crushing his ribcage with her grip, and kept on eyeing Kise suspiciously but stopped hissing.

Ryouta had chaos in his mind. That couldn't be happening, they couldn't be loosing Kurokocchi like that! Not after all that happened, not after that whole year in which he taught them so much! They were _friends_! They were friends again! They were…!

"…We'r-re…f-friend-s!" the model was sobbing and he couldn't stop himself not prevent the ugly expression that took his face, "W-we're fri-ends!"

Death blinked, or at least that was how it seemed to Kise, once and the model felt like there was a chance left. As long as Kurokocchi kept on breathing, they could still do something.

Murasakibara saw Ryouta falling on his knees, unable to stand, and he, like the others, called him but the other simply ignored their worriedness and almost stretched toward the pitchy woman.

"W-we were wrong…" The copycat kept on crying, "…bu-t we go-got it now, ok-ay?! We got it! S-so…There-e's no n-…no need to…ta-ke him… We-we'll treat h-im diff-erent-ly! We'll ch-ch-cher-ish hi-m! … J-ust do-n't…don't t-…don't tak-e hi-hi-him!"

Midorima knew that Kise was on the verge of hyperventilation – he had always been too emotional for his own good when it came to his friends –, but before he could say something, the blond guy shocked everybody, probably even Death.

He pinned his hands on his tights and bend forward, making his spin arch in a deep bow, and closed his eyes stopping for a second the flow of tears tracing lines down his cheek.

"Give Kurokocchi back to us, please!" he sobbed in a louder and a bit firmer voice, "Onegai! Onegai… Onegai…"

He kept on repeating his pleas with his body jerking of secret sobs and Death stared at him, but held Kuroko even closer.

There was a slight crack that filled the air and Kise shrieked.

"Ohi, quit it, damn!" Aomine growled and suddenly he had the feeling that Death's eyes had moved on him, as if he had shifted her attention from Kise. Her grip loosened slightly but there was a strange print on Tetsuya's ribcage shape.

Daiki cursed under his breath, but paid attention not to be heard by the creature. She surely had a bad temper, it seemed, and he wasn't sure that fractures ribs could help a person who was being strangled.

He thought about what he could do, but the situation they all were in didn't leave him many choices if not…

"Fuck this." he muttered, but stepped forward all the same. Once beside Kise, he pat his head for a second, trying to comfort him the best he could, before doing something he felt really bad for.

He mimicked the blond, kneelt and bowed with his fist pressed on his tights.

His "Give Tetsu back to us" was strong and clear, but his voice cracked a bit on his "Please". Death didn't seem to mind as she lifted again her chlamys and hissed, clearly annoyed for the growing proximity of the two guys.

Midorima was on the edge, his ear sharpened to catch any single sound from Kuroko's body, but luckily there were no other cracks and his trunk was spared. His breath, thought, stumbled again.

It seemed Death's hand wasn't really blocking his respiratory tracks and air managed to enter his body freely, but all the same he was chocking. The meant-to-be doctor thought that Death, in the end, didn't need a body to kill someone. It probably looked, to the outsiders, as if Kuroko was suffocating on his own, for some complications in his body. No one could realize, even if he watched attentively, what was really happening. Not that anybody in the room, a part from them, seemed to have noticed the situation.

The frozen people all around him made Midorima clench his fists.

What if no help came? What if nobody called a doctor and Kuroko died there with them watching helplessly as life left him? As a future doctor, he couldn't let it happen, so he stepped forward. It was not because he cared for the phantom, obviously.

"I'm just returning the favour, nanodayo." he said adjusting the glasses on his nose and mimicking his two former teammates in that respectful pleading bow, "It's for the notes he lent me in middle school. I was still in debt, so… Give Kuroko back to us, please."

"Mido-chin, you never borrowed notes from Kuro-chin…" Shintarou turned all of a sudden, ready to scream at Yosen's giant, but he stood silent when he discovered that the boy had walked beside him. His purple eyes were fixed on the creature staring angrily at him and at his green haired comrade. "…but if it is for Kuro-chin to be okay, I don't mind bowing too."

It felt really strange to see Murasakibara in such a remissive position, as much as did the words escaping his lips, that same pleas of the others: "Give Kuro-chin back to us, please."

The boys were just four steps from Death who was now hissing and growling like crazy. The hair around here smacked the air like whips and the darkness of her lower body or gown spread wider, as if to create a bigger safe zone for her and her doll.

Kuroko's breath was so light by now that the boys sensed it was almost the end, that their time was quickly running out.

It was then that light but firm steps overcame them to approach the black creature.

"Ohi, Akashi!" Aomine tried to say, but Akashi ignored him and kept on walking 'til when he was finally right in front of Tetsuya.

He looked at him for a second before moving his eyes on the Lady.

"I was used to victory." He said, staring straight within those orbs of endless darkness that were trying to swallow him whole, "Today I lost and that made me think…about the things I'm not willing to lose." He straightened more to watch Death from high downward as he declared: "When it comes to Tetsuya, I realized that he's one of the very few I _cannot afford_ to lose."

Death stopped hissing. Her chlamys lowered, skin tight, as she lifted her head to a side a bit, as if trying to hear or watch better, almost surprised.

Surprised as she definitely was, when Seijuro slowly moved on his knees and then bent forward, but, differently from his previous teammates, he laid his hands on the floor instead and went down to the point of touching the ground with his forehead.

"Give Tetsuya back to us." he asked, clear and loud, " _Please._ "

Death watched him and then…she suddenly looked horrified.

A scream, absolute and powerful, escaped her lips and almost deafened the five boys knelt in front of her. It sounded outraged and furious and avenging and it suddenly stopped.

Akashi opened his eyes, confused, but didn't dare to move from his position. If he had, he would have seen what his teammates did.

There was a strange little light, of a pale teal blue, pulsing slowly at a heartbeat rhythm and Death looked mesmerized in watching it. It was no bigger than a fist of hers and yet so bright and calming. The guys couldn't explain it, but it looked almost…happy?

It was shining peacefully in Tetsuya's chest, right where his heart was placed.

Death whined. It was low and pitiful, almost begging, but the light just shone a bit more, comforting and yet firm.

Alashi lifted his head when a glimpse of teal hit the floor and let him know that something strange was happening and when he laid his eyes on that strange star-like phenomenon…the Light flooded his mind.

 ** _A peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death_**

"KUROKOCCHI!"

"TETSU!"

"KUROKO!"

"KURO-CHIN!"

"TETSUYA!"

 ** _A peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death_**

Kise opened his eyes. He was panting, sweaty and laying in his futon.

It took him just a second to absorb his surrounding and jump.

 ** _A peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death_**

Aomine cursed when the sheets entangled his legs and made him fall painfully.

He hit his desk leg with his forehead, but it sure as hell wasn't enough to stop him.

 ** _A peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death_**

As soon as he managed to turn on his cell-phone, Midorima searched immediately for the chat groups. It was difficult since he was as blind as a bat and had left his glasses somewhere but he ignored it to open the chat.

It was not like he was worried, obviously!

 ** _A peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death_**

Murasakibara was just sending his text, a simple ' _Can we meet somewhere today? Now?_ ' when a list of similar texts invaded the chat. They were from Kise, Aomine, Midorima and even Akashi.

He chose it was a satisfying answer and put on some clothes before exiting his room, thinking how lucky it was that they were all still in Kyoto after the Winter Cup, ended just the day before.

 ** _A peaceful dream of a G_ _host and Lady Death_**

Akashi ignored Reo's bantering and exited the hotel where his team was staying and, probably shocking Mayuzumi who was after him, he jumped on the first bus he saw going toward the combini he and the others used to go to when in middle school.

While sitting, he checked his phone and he felt strangely relieved that Tetsuya's answer was there, a simple ' _At the usual place._ ' that calmed his heart down.

 ** _A peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death_**

Kuroko was frowning. Well, for as much as someone as expressionless as him could. He had his eyebrow crimped of a millimetre and his lips were two curled downward.

He was worried. It was not like his previous teammates to act like that: they all got up early – and that definitely proved how something was wrong with Aomine – and all at once they asked to meet – Midorima even putting aside his tsundereness for a second – as if they had hanged together even…the day before, or something like that. To be honest, Kuroko had even forgotten about the chat group they had created back in middle school since they hadn't used it since the third year in Teiko. Even before the Winter Cup, Akashi summoned them with normal texts, not using it.

They were surely up to something, Tetsuya was almost sure of it. The other possibility was that something bad had happened, but Momoi looked as surprised as him and it couldn't be possible that anything slipped unnoticed past his ex-manager's eyes.

He pulled out the phone from his pocket and checked it. They didn't say a time – only ' _Now_ ' – but the bus he was on had gotten stuck in a car accident and it was already more than an hour since when they had agreed on the meeting. He had obviously alerted the others, but he felt bad all the same for making them wait, especially in such a strange situation, so he put the mobile back and began running.

 ** _A peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death_**

It was… awkward.

They were in a circle staring at each other, no one daring to say the foolish reason – a nightmare!, a simple childish nightmare! – for their calling out to the others, while Momoi moved her gaze on them trying to figure something out.

"What happened?" she finally asked out loud and they all jerked.

It happened that they were dorks.

Kise laughed playfully, embarrassed, while scratching his head.

"Gomen, gomen!" he said, already used to be called childish so much that he was the first one to gain the courage to admit the reason for his behaviour, "It's just that… I had this really strange dream and I…want to check on everybody? Ahahah!"

It was almost unbelievable when nobody laughed or insulted him. Kise blinked twice to make sure, but the others were staring at him as if he had suddenly grown a pair of horns, Momoi being the only one unfazed by his words.

She was almost motherly when she asked him: "What did you dream of, Ki-chan?"

Kise blinked again as a shiver made his skin crawl.

"Well…" he hesitated, but in the end the truth came out alone, mostly because the eyes on him looked so much like his that he felt the need to know…why?, "There was this strange pitchy woman that was trying to take Kurokocchi away…"

"Death." Kise stopped. Shocked, he laid his eyes on Aomine, but the navy ones were as wide as his as the tanned boy kept on talking. "It was…Death. Death was trying to…strangle Tetsu."

"She said we didn't deserve him," Midorima was pale and his hand, wrapped around the lucky item of the day, a black handkerchief, trembled a bit as he finished the sentence, "so Kise knelt, promised we would have treat him better and begged her to give Kuroko back."

"Mido-chin knelt too." remembered Murasakibara, chewing on his maiubo far too slowly for his standards, proving his nervousness, "After Mine-chin but before me, and then…"

He hesitated. Everybody slowly moved his eyes on their red-haired captain, who was staring shocked at the nothingness in front of him.

"…I prostrated." he said, but with no shame. He looked too caught up in that situation to worry about his behaviour, "Then, a light turned on in Tetsuya's chest and I… _we_ woke up."

Then, it was silence.

 ** _A peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death_**

Kuroko felt very, very irritated. As he ran through the crowd of people who didn't notice him, he felt his lungs almost collapsing in exhaustion for the running right after the day of a difficult match.

He was breathing so heavily that it almost looked as if he was suffocating.

 ** _A peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death_**

"So…" Momoi hesitated after collecting all the data, but then asked: "You all had the same dream at the same time? About Tetsu-kun's death?"

"About Tetsu _and_ Death." Aomine corrected her, "That thing was scary as hell."

"Oha-Asa didn't talk about it…" Midorima murmured, almost to himself, but this time they all looked at him with expectations. There was no way they could deny a chance to a Horoscope after such a…supernatural experience. To be honest, it was almost hurting when the daily fortune show seemed to ignore their need.

"I wonder if Kurokocchi dreamt of it too." Kise said abruptly, "He was the one in direct contact with Death so maybe he could know something more…."

"Talking about that," Murasakibara pulled his maiubo out of his mouth to look around, "where is Kuro-chin?"

Akashi checked his phone and frowned. Kuroko had said that he would be a bit late due to traffic but it was almost an hour and half. Why did it take so long?

"We should try to meet with him the soonest possible." he declared, putting the phone aside and trying to shake off the feeling of uneasiness growing in him, "Let's try to move, maybe we can catch up to him as he comes here."

Nobody objected him as they all start walking – in a strangely fast pace – toward Kuroko's house.

 ** _A peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death_**

Tetsuya stopped at the umpteenth red traffic lamp, but instead of mentally cursing he bent and rested his hands on his tight trying to catch his breath.

He was panting heavily by know and his legs felt light, but he couldn't stop. It was so rare for the others to ask for a meeting: he may be suspicious, but he's glad too that they looked for each other when in need. He passed a hand between his shirt collar and his throat, feeling the latter slightly constricted, and he opened a bit the zip of his jacket, but it didn't change a lot if not the cold air slipping down his spine.

 _I want a milkshake._ , he decided while straightening and watching toward the other side of the road.

It was probably fate, because he spotted immediately the figures of his former teammates walking toward him, probably tired of waiting. Well, it was not that easy _not_ to spot them, with their hair and their fast pace.

Kuroko frowned – as he could, again – a bit. Maybe something did really happened?

He looked at the traffic lamp as they crossed the road just before the one he was going to reach and when it turned green he stepped down the sidewalk deciding that, if it was another of their idiocies, he would have had them paying for his milkshake.

He didn't even think about checking for eventual hit and runs.

 ** _A peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death_**

It was as clear as day in those blue eyes of his as he crossed the road despite the too-fast car coming in his way that Kuroko had not noticed the danger.

He didn't see it coming, but Akashi did. He screamed out before the others could realize and _then_ they saw it too. They all ran, calling out to their friends, but he didn't hear them.

The pitchy black SUV ran him over as easily as a man stomping on an ant, with a piercing sound of brakes that resembles a woman's scream.

* * *

 **Authoress' notes:**

 _Before someone thinks about killing me, I'd like you to read the upper part saying "Up to AlternativeEnding", okay? So if you want, you just have to ask for it, okay?_

 _That said, how was this? I swear I didn't scheduled this: it simply came out while I was supposed to study, so… I don't know how it is and it's even my first no-pairings, pray you like it XD_

 _See you!_

 ** _Agap_**


	2. Alternative Ending

_**(Alternative Ending)**_

Bip. Bip. Bip.

Akashi had fallen asleep to that sound and opened his eyes on it too. He didn't know if he felt more grateful for it to still be there or more devastated for its meaning.

He rapidly check on Ryouta, asleep sitting with his back against the mattress side, and Aomine sleeping on the chair at the other side of the bed with his arms crossed on his chest. Murasakibara was curled up on the little sofa against the wall before the little white bed and Midorima was nowhere to be seen, but his jacket was still with the others on an armrest of the couch so he had to be somewhere.

Seijuro sat straighter trying not to groan for the pain in his strained neck, then his eyes fell on the sheets and he forgot about himself again.

Tetsuya's eyes were closed and the oxygen mask was covering half his face. There was a bandage covering his whole head and Akashi knew there were almost no hair left under it. His arms, hosting far too many IVs, had bandages here and there, but luckily the heartbeat and breathing cadency were regular now.

The clock on the bedpost said it was six in the morning and Seijuro took a second to consider. Tetsuya had gotten out of the surgery room after the intervention to drain the pressure on his brain due to a skull fracture around midnight — and he had gotten in around five in the afternoon — but the anesthetics were bound to last some hours more. He had calculated Tetsuya should woke up around five, but the doctors said that it could have taken more for his friend's body to feet ready to start working again.

Akashi looked at him seeing nothing but the moment the car had hit him, the way his legs had bent, how he had crushed on the windshield, how he rolled over the top of the car and fell behind it.

There were just so many people crossing that street in that moment so why did it have to be Tetsuya?! There were thousands of people who deserved it, but not him. So why?!, what was the damned reason for that all to happen?!

Seijuro got up from his chair feeling his legs numb under him and somehow he managed to sit on the mattress beside his friend without awaking Kise. He laid an hand over his and slowly caressed it with his thumb.

"Give him back." he murmured, as if hushing a kid to sleep, fondly but firmly, "Everything that Ryouta said, I promise them too. We all do."

He spared a look to the other guys in the room and saw the door opening to let Midorima in with a tray filled with glasses of coffee from a vending machine. The two exchanged a tired look before the taller offered him one of the cups.

"Momoi will be here in a few minutes, nanodayo." he warned, "She said she couldn't sleep anyway and that if someone would think bad of her for spending all this time alone in a room filled with guys then so be it. She seemed pretty exhausted, nanodayo."

Akashi sighed but nodded. Somehow he had known since the very second Aomine managed to convince Momoi to go home, the previous night, that she wouldn't have waited long before coming back.

How to blame here? Kuroko's parents were oversea, they were there when the accident occurred, she had — or had had — a crush on him and they were really close… It was hard on them all, in the end.

"Akashicchi? Midorimacchi?"

Seijuro sipped slowly on the hot beverage as Kise brushed his eyes with his wrists and Shintarou passed him a cup trying not to look as the caring mother he partially was. The blond got up from the floor with some grunts that in the end awoke Aomine too. Finally, Murasakibara opened his eyes too and Mirodima could give out all of his coffees but one, that he left on the beside table.

The others stared at him.

"It's for Momoi, nanodayo!" the bespectacled guy justified himself, but they all knew it would have been cold by the time the girl would reach them.

"I see." Akashi humored him with a little strained smile.

They waited silently, Kise stealing Seijuro's chair and Midorima sitting beside Murasakibara. Momoi came in some minutes later, still dressed as the day before and with huge bags under her eyes.

She complained a bit, but in the end gave up and walked to Aomine who made her sit on his lap. She placed her head in the crook of his neck and he slowly caressed her spine in a reassuring way.

It would have been an extremely intimate and embarrassing position and gesture had the situation not put anybody on too much strain to care about convenience and etiquette.

"I want him back." Satsuki uttered after a second and those four words sent a shiver down everybody's spine.

"He'll come." Akashi said, firm, without turning toward her.

"Yeah, Tetsu's too much stubborn, Satsuki. You can't even consider him giving up."

"Kurokocchi's just resting for a while."

"He indeed has a very low stamina, so it's only natural for him to need a lot of time to recover, nanodayo."

"That was harsh, Mido-chin."

"…Tsun-dere…"

Akashi giggled a bit, before realizing whose voice was the last one and freezing. Slowly, as if scared of breaking a spell, he turned and his eyes met the blue sweeps of two twin skies under half-lifted eyelids.

"…Midor-ima…-kun…" Kuroko strived to finish his short sentence, but when he managed he opened up in a little smile.

One that last only a second before he grunted in pain, but that was enough.

Despite Akashi being the closest, Kise managed to be the first one to almost jump on him screaming "Kurokocchi". The others followed short after, each one with their own personal nickname for their friend.

 ** _The peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death_**

It took Kuroko a while to be discharged and rehab was hard, but he had all the Miracles around, helping at their best, and when he finally stepped on the court again, against Aomine in some strange and distorted irony of fate, he was smiling proudly.

He was never told what the others wanted to talk to him about, never knew about their shared dream and how different the outcome might have been had they not chosen to meet for him.


End file.
